AP - Roland Burris failed in his bid to take President-elect Barack Obama's Illinois Senate seat on Tuesday in a scripted piece of political theater staged just before the opening of the 111th Congress.

AP - The new Congress opened for business at the stroke of noon on Tuesday, eager to join President-elect Barack Obama in tackling the worst economic crisis in generations. Democrats celebrated last fall's election gains in the House and Senate.

AP - An Israeli bombardment struck outside a U.N. school where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge on Tuesday, the U.N. and Palestinian medics said, killing at least 30 people — many of them children whose parents wailed in grief at a hospital filled with dead and wounded.